Take away a manâ€™s actu­al sense of manhood–which is con­ven­tion­al­ly based on the abil­i­ty to work, to earn mon­ey, to be self-suf­fi­cient, to pro­vide for children–and youâ€™ve got to give them some­thing else. And they did.

This hideous reli­gion thatâ€™s all over the country–these huge church-malls–thatâ€™s what sub­sti­tutes for these lost towns. But thatâ€™s not a town. Thatâ€™s a cult. A town is diverse, in a real way, not in this fake way we have now. A com­mu­ni­ty is a butch­er and a doc­tor, a min­is­ter, a town trou­ble­mak­er. A ‘com­mu­ni­ty’ is not a bunch of peo­ple unit­ed by some griev­ance. Thatâ€™s just self-righteousness–incredibly dan­ger­ous and anti­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic. Peo­ple have become so rigid; their opin­ions seem to them like them­selves. When that hap­pens (and it has hap­pened) peo­ple canâ€™t change their minds. If you are iden­ti­fied by your opinions–if that is the very basis of yourself–how can you change your mind?